The strange facts behind our Christmas traditions are often just as fascinating as the traditions themselves! Read on to find out about the stories behind the customs.
Spooky Santa Claus
The idea of Santa Claus came from St Nicholas. In the fourth century, the Christian bishop gave away his large inheritance to the poor and rescued women from servitude.
The Christmas tree tradition started when Prince Albert of Germany got a tree for his new wife, Queen Victoria of England. A drawing of the couple in front of a Christmas tree first appeared in the Illustrated London News in 1848.
Prince Albert’s Christmas Treet
In early images, Father Christmas/Santa looked more spooky than jolly. Then, in 1931, Coca-Cola hired an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom to depict the jolly old man we now know and love.
Hanging stockings started by accident. Legend has it that we hang stockings by the chimney with care because, for one year, a poor widowed man didn’t have enough money for his three daughters’ dowries, making it difficult for them to marry. Generous old St Nick dropped a bag of gold down their chimney one night, and into the freshly washed stockings the girls had hung by the fire to dry. After that, the tradition stuck!
Image courtesy of Pixabay
The holiday season certainly brings a lot of joy, but it also comes with its share of risks — and decorating accidents are a big part of that! The American Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that around 14,700 people visit emergency rooms in the US during November and December each year due to holiday decorating accidents. This works out to about 240 injuries per day.
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first appeared in 1939 when the Montgomery Ward department store asked one of its copywriters to create a Christmas story for kids that the store could distribute as a promotion. In the first year alone 2.4 million copies were distributed.
“Jingle Bells” was originally a Thanksgiving song. James Lord Pierpont wrote the song called “One Horse Open Sleigh” for his church’s Thanksgiving concert in the mid-19th century. Then, in 1857, the song was re-released under the title we know now, and it’s still among the most popular Christmas songs today.
“Silent Night” is actually the most-recorded Christmas song in history. It’s had more than 733 different versions copyrighted since 1978. Mistletoe isn’t as sweet as it sounds. Mistle thrush birds eat the plant’s berries, digest the seed and then help the plant germinate with their droppings. The Germanic word for mistletoe loosely means “dung on a twig.”
Mistletoe – image courtesy of Pixabay
Londoners and visitors see the iconic spruce that stretches to the sky in Trafalgar Square each year, but few realise it’s an equally iconic holiday gift. Since 1947, the city of Oslo has given the tree to London as a token of gratitude for Britain’s support during World War II.
During World War II, the United States Playing Card Company joined forces with American and British intelligence agencies to create a very special deck of cards. They distributed them as Christmas gifts to soldiers, but they also helped Allied prisoners of war escape from German POW camps. When wet, individual cards peeled apart to reveal maps of escape routes.
The First Christmas Card
The term “Xmas” comes from Greece, X is the Greek symbol for Christ.
Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” has been credited with selling 50 million copies, the most by any release. It is, therefore, the biggest-selling single worldwide of all time.
In 1843, English civil servant and inventor Sir Henry Cole produced and sent the first Christmas card.
Rudolph should be portrayed without antlers, as male reindeer shed them in the winter. The amount of wrapping paper used in the UK alone each Christmas is enough to cover the island of Guernsey!
You can send a “postcard” on the internet to the crew on the International Space Station sending a Christmas message.
Christmas Eve Shopping
Christmas trees usually grow for close to 15 years before they can be sold.
One in three men wait until Christmas Eve to do their shopping.
Mince pies were originally made with meat, not fruit. The first recipe for mince pies dates back to the 13th century, and they were called “minced pies.”
December 25th
Christmas doesn’t explicitly mention December 25th in the Bible, and different theories exist about the actual date of Jesus’ birth. The Bible provides limited details about the exact date, only offering clues like shepherds were in the fields at night (which some scholars suggest might indicate a spring or autumn birth when weather conditions were milder). The tradition of celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th emerged in the early Christian church, particularly in Rome. By around 336 AD, the church officially recognised December 25th as the date of Christ’s birth, although it’s likely that this date was chosen for several reasons, including its alignment with pre-existing Roman festivals like the Sol Invictus (the festival of the Unconquered Sun), which celebrated the winter solstice and the return of longer days. This would have made it easier for early Christians to adopt the date without overtly rejecting Roman cultural traditions.
Christmas Was Illegal
The Massachusetts Bay Colony made Christmas celebrations illegal from 1659 to 1691, reflecting the Puritan belief that such festivities were frivolous and unbiblical. The Puritans, who had strict religious convictions, disapproved of what they saw as the “superstitious” nature of Christmas, associating it with excess, partying, and pagan rituals. Those caught celebrating Christmas faced a fine of five shillings, which was a substantial amount of money at the time. The law was part of a broader attempt to keep the colonies focused on religious observance, in contrast to the more festive and, in their view, “worldly” practices of Christmas. By the time of the American Revolution, Christmas had very little cultural significance in the United States. In fact, the new government under the Articles of Confederation didn’t see it as a holiday worth observing. With Congress convening its first session on December 25, 1789, it symbolised just how far removed the country was from celebrating the holiday. It wasn’t until the 19th century that Christmas began to be more widely recognised and celebrated across the U.S. The shift was partly due to changing cultural attitudes, such as the influence of British traditions and figures like Washington Irving and Charles Dickens, whose stories helped popularise the holiday. Christmas finally became widely recognised in the U.S. when President Ulysses S. Grant declared it a federal holiday day in 1870.
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